


no-one must see you

by bossymarmalade (maggie)



Category: Moulin Rouge! (2001)
Genre: Awesome People of Color Comment-a-thon, Character Study, Character of Color, Diaspora, Interracial Relationship, M/M, Postcolonial
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-08-06
Updated: 2010-08-06
Packaged: 2017-10-12 18:46:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 653
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/127914
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/maggie/pseuds/bossymarmalade
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>More complicated than just the Handsome And Fetishised Strapping Black Servant.</p>
            </blockquote>





	no-one must see you

**Author's Note:**

> prompt from pandarus in [awesome people of colour comment-a-thon](http://medie.livejournal.com/1759238.html)
> 
> standard foreword: if i have written something problematic/oppressive to a marginalized group that you find hurtful, please please please don't think twice about telling me. i will never spew hate at you, will never attack you, and i will always thank you and make the change.

"So what did they used to call you?" asks Nini. Her red lips are rough with the words, chewing around them, and he looks up at the catwalk and says, "They used to call me Moon-Gazer."

Nini snorts, hopping down from the lacquered and paste-jewelled rani throne. "You know what I mean," she insists, although she's already losing interest, sharp eyes darting. "What was your real name, back where you come from."

China Doll's head lifts, and though she doesn't stop massaging her feet she flits a wry smile and eye-roll in his direction. That tiny moment of commiseration is all he needs, some days.

They used to call him Moon-Gazer, back where he came from, because he was so tall he reminded people of their folkloric figures, the men whose long legs straddled the road as they gazed endlessly at the moon from eyes at the level of coconut trees. He is taken aback the first time he sees his costume for the hunkadola, those striped pants that belong forked above a dark remote road in the Caribbean heat and not knifing madly together in a cramped French bordello.

"Where do you come from?" Satine had asked him when he'd first arrived at the Moulin Rouge, and when he'd said, "Montmartre," she'd nodded and turned around for him to help fasten the clasp on her necklace. She'd never brought it up again. While this might be because she is, at the core of it, too narcissistic to bother, it suits his purposes and comfort just fine. Black skin like his requires explaining too often here.

Black skin like his goes gorgeously under blue paint, and the makeup mistress coos at how still he holds himself while she daubs the thick clay onto every exposed area. The clay smells good, like pigment and salt and earth, and if he closes his eyes he can almost see the Hindu festivals winding across the savannah back where he came from, the images and statues of invitingly dark blue-skinned gods turning graceful hands and feet. They are not his gods but in this place, wrapping himself in blue skin and golden filigree is the closest he can get to the tall, laughing boy who they once called Moon-Gazer.

 _tere paas aaun teri saanson mein samaun raja  
i'll come near you, i'll sink into your breath_

Every time the chorus girls sing it, oh sad diamonds, he can hear the ghost of Rajiv's warbling voice, off-key and too low, the parts of his words that are hardly more than throaty breath snatched away by the wind on the beach. Blue-skinned Rajiv, teasing him as they dart through high stiletto sugar cane in inky black night -- _catch me, catch me_ \-- never knowing that the smell of coconut oil on his twisting body makes him easy to track, easy to grab and lick and hold. Sunken-in oil and salt, sugar-rich as fried plantain, blue and brown and black in this place they come from.

"They say if the moon-gazers catch you on a cane road at night, they crush you between their legs." Rajiv's teeth flashing evenly as he laughs, pushing up boldly to embrace this thick hard fate, their dark skin together so much richer than

"Chocolat."

Nini is staring at him in cruel interest now and he realizes that his face is wet. He blinks rapidly and squints upward, calling, "Stop kicking down dust on us!", and chance favours him because after a long, still moment Satine leans over and trills apologies, blowing kisses to him from her ruddy mouth. Sourness stirred at the sight of the prima ingenue, Nini scowls and darts away into the bowels of the backstage.

He rubs his fingers neatly over his face, circling and stroking thick paint and brine wetness over cheeks and chin and nose. This blue skin, he has discovered, erases the marks of weeping without even a trace.


End file.
